As a new drummer and long-time Rosegarden user, I want to use the computer as an improvement aid to help my drumming.

-

My original plan was to add drum notation to Rosegarden. ​ After serious study and contemplation,​ I have concluded this is very impractical. ​ Rosegarden does all internal work using a MIDI-based system, and the existing editors allow you to move notes freely up and down the scale by MIDI pitch. ​ Height on staff and other factors are ultimately determined by the MIDI pitch. ​ Rosegarden can manage polyphonic notation, but poorly and awkwardly. ​ It is best to keep polyphony to a minimum.

-

-

Drum notes need to be written at one particular height by drum. As drum kits are highly polyphonic; every height represents a different instrument, and has to be notated within a separate segment. ​ Some drums can trigger a variety of different MIDI pitches from the same staff position, eg. snare head/cross stick/rim shot, ride edge/​bell/​bow,​ and open/closed hi-hat. ​ Some drums can trigger the same MIDI pitch from different staff positions, eg. the hi-hat pedal is notated toward the bottom of the staff, for the foot, and can play a note by itself, but it is also used with and sometimes notated in conjunction with the closed hi-hat sound that it triggers. ​ The drum score to "I Will Survive"​ by Gloria Gaynor comes to mind as an example where entering that as notated on the score would trigger duplicate closed hi-hat events. ​ Finally, drum notes need to export to LilyPond in a totally different way, like "hh4 bd bd hh."

-

-

Added all together, Rosegarden needs something radically different to handle these requirements. ​ Rosegarden has stretched the limits of what can be done with notation in a sequencer-based application,​ but after stewing on all of this for a few weeks, I have to conclude that drum notation lies beyond those limits. ​ The only realistic way to go forward here is to invent a new event paradigm that is not MIDI-based, where it displays at pitch //x//, sounds at pitch //y//, and exports as pitch //​z//​. ​ There could be no way to go back and forth between that and standard Rosegarden events. ​ It would amount to doing a parallel, notation-driven system within the existing MIDI-driven system.

-

-

It feels tantalizingly possible to overcome all of these objections, but I have concluded that even if it could be done, it just wouldn'​t be anything to be proud to show off in the end. It would be hacky and weird in the extreme.

-

-

I have determined that the best solution to my overall requirements is to switch to a notation-driven editor like MusE Score for notating drum parts. ​ Perhaps I will discover opportunities to improve workflow and integration with that application.